Recently launched in Graz, Austria: the Traffic Check platform that allows citizens to provide feedback on their experience with the signaling controls of 315 of the city’s traffic lights. The project went live early November and has seen 800 citizen ratings on the first day alone. The city pledges to use the feedback to better calibrate the signals for a better experience by all groups concerned (pedestrian, bike, car, public transport, etc). To me this seems […]
Leaving aside the controversy about some of Uber’s operation, this is a post about a specific aspect that I find truly remarkable in an Uber ride experience compared to a conventional taxi ride: the experience of the payment process (or the discreet absence thereof). A conventional taxi confronts you permanently with the taximeter ticking away as the ride progresses. The meter ticks away, the price increases and you have no idea how high it will […]
The fact that man is capable of action means that the unexpected can be expected from him, that he is able to perform what is infinitely improbable. Hannah Arendt
What a glorious transformation to turn a parking spot into a cafe. Public Parklets, as seen in San Francisco, appear to be a great form of public-private-partnership (PPP). As part of its Pavement to Parks initiative, the city offers to adopt parking lots for conversion into places for people to linger, rest, interact,… Parklet hosts are often street side facing cafes or restaurants. Upon approval of the request, the host business pays a one time […]
Ever tried to ride the bike finding your path by staring at your smartphone’s map app in one hand, the other hand trying to keep the bike on track? I keep being intrigued by ways to bring the real-time and location-based information potential of the smartphone into our physical environment to interact with, without having to use a (touch-)display as an interface. And this is a good example: bike handles that you simply mount onto […]
From the size of this device it is clear what people in Graz seem to believe to be the biggest speeding threat in town. The looming perennial question is: will this become the new go-to destination to measure speed records publicly? This interactive signage is positioned in what is a ‘shared street’ for both bikers and pedestrians only. Increasingly, in this particular street, fast bikers get i to conflict with not-so-fast pedestrians, with both getting […]
Once upon a time there were three phone boxes… What to do with those empty niches left behind by once connected public phones? Ideas anyone?
As seen recently in Graz, Austria. Outside an optician’s store, a sales strategy for the busy and stylish urban walker: put 2 times 2 Euro into the dispenser and pull the lever on the latest (or not so latest) model of sunglasses for today’s urban stroll.